Categories: translation
Date: 29 May 2009 22:10:29
After weeks of being almost exclusively occupied with the Museum of Me (work has been really rather thin on the ground recently), I was rudely awoken from a very curious dream this morning. I stumbled to my office - about 4 yards from my bed and answered the telephone perkily:
Me: Good morning! Tiggywinkle Translations. Kerensa Tiggywinkle speaking
German: Guten Morgen, Frau Tiggywinkle...ich habe Ihren Namen von Ihrer Kollegin xxx bekommen....
...and off this good lady rattled at top speed. I have never heard German spoken so fast in my life! She went into overdrive when reading out an excerpt from the document she wanted translating. I barely caught a word and so I suggested she send me the document so that I could "assess if it fell within my area of (cough!) expertise".
I gathered from her that time was of the essence - she wanted the job back by midnight on Sunday. I quickly phoned my colleague who had referred me and found out little as T had never actually done any translation for her before - T was merely on the database of possible translators and was unable to take work on today.
A whole precious hour later, part one of the email arrived with attachments. I prepared my quote and mailed it off. Another hour later, the quote was accepted with a request to have it all back by "early Saturday morning". What?! I was banking on having two whole days to do this! Just as I was considering my response (I've had so little work recently, I didn't feel I was in a position to turn it down), Frau Schnellspeak was on the other end of the blower offering to pay me 50% extra for the stress. Well, she didn't put it that way, but that's what it boils down to.
The work is not particularly difficult - just a response to a questionnaire for a tender for a contract. I grumbled to myself about how the whole process felt to be like translating one side of a conversation - people who deal with their own subject area all day, every day, have no idea what it is like to be dumped in the deep end of what they are doing with no context, no background, no build up, no reference materials. What do you want those for? Surely the words speak for themselves! Well, not always and some of these responses were quite ambiguous to me. How could I be sure I was translating the words correctly when I had no context?
Just at that moment, Frau Schnellspeak was on the phone again. I asked her if she had the original questions I could look at. Oh yes! she had! Gosh, what an incredibly brilliant idea - then you'll have a better understanding of what I'm responding to! (Hmm...I refrained from being deeply sarcastic - she was a brand-new client after all.) So I agreed enthusiastically.
The questions arrived in an excel sheet - which for some reason I couldn't open. I quickly googled about what I should do. Someone had posted a response to a similar query - but it involved downloading something or other and I simply hadn't the time to get involved with techy stuff. My computer had already slowed down to an all-time record as Friday mornings are virus scan mornings.
I ploughed on regardless. About 5 pm here (6 pm in Germany), I received a phone call. No prizes for guessing who it was. Very kindly asking if everything was ok. I explained my plight. She had converted the files into something or other I could open within seconds! Good for Frau Schnellspeak! She also said I could call her on her "Handy" (the Gerlish for mobile/cell phone) at any time. I warned her I would be up late and that she probably wouldn't want a call at 2 a.m.
About 10 minutes later the phone rang again. I answered thinking it would be you-know-who. It wasn't. It was SE from madchurch (info for Jack the Lass) who was in the next town (rather than being in the Big Smoke) and wondered if she could drop in for a cuppa. Twenty-five minutes later, she was here, so we sat in the garden eating a hastily thrown together pasta dish, and nattered in the evening sun. An hour or so later, S was on her merry way back to the Bright Lights and I returned to the job in hand. And I'm still here... I sent a text message to Frau Schnellspeak about an hour ago asking if it was OK to phone her. No response. I suspect she's tucked up with her Teddy Bär.
I, on the other hand, am going to have to continue - and work out what I'm going to do about the queries I have. I'm supposed to be leaving the house at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go on a hike (so that'll be approximately 2 hours after I've finally hit the hay, then...) and will probably be out of range of a mobile signal. I'm trying to decide if this is a good thing.